development, reporting that the investment was necessary to remain competitive. Jassy wrote in his letter to shareholders, an annual rite of passage for the top boss at the retailer Seatle “If your mission is to make customers' lives better and easier every day, and you believe every customer experience will be reinvented by AI, you're going to invest deeply and broadly in AI,”.
He also said that in order to build a data centre that substantial capital investment is necessary in order to be obtained “Our customers, shareholders, and business will be well-served by our investing aggressively now,”.
Amazon is also investing heavily in generative AI, including releasing a variety of chatbots serving sellers, businesses as well and consumers. The previous month, after multiple delays and billions of dollars of investment, it revealed the AI-infused revamping of its Alexa voice assistant.
It is also worth mentioning that Amazon has invested about $8 billion in AI startup Anthropic and has incorporated its Claude software into what it is calling Alexa+. Jassy’s comments regarding Amazon’s AI spending echo what Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said on Wednesday during a Google Cloud event.
Pichai also reiterated his company’s plans to spend some $75 billion this year can also build out data center capacity and defended Alphabet’s massive jump in capital expenditure, reporting “the opportunity with AI is as big as it gets.".
The global market in recent days has been roiled due to the import tariffs that the US has been imposing, targeting goods coming from China, yet Jassy made no comment regarding the matter in his letter.
However, later on, in an interview with CNBC, he said that Amazon has pulled forward some inventory orders and is working to keep prices low, also adding that the company wants to see a meaningful impact on demand for discretionary items from the noise around tariffs.
“People have not stopped buying. There are certain categories where we do see a little bit of people buying ahead, but it's hard to know if it's just an anomaly ... we haven't seen any change in consumer behavior in a meaningful way yet."
On Wednesday, they also pledged to keep prices low, even as they noted volatility in shopping behaviours starting this February.
We can also be mindful of the fact that Amazon shares have also slid by 13%this year, meaning less than some of its rivals, including Alphabet and Apple, yet sharper than Microsoft’s 7% through Wednesday.
He also said, “We have such high demand right now for AWS and AI. The growth is so significant that we don't see any attenuation in demand, and we're going to keep building,". The letter from Amazon is also aimed at shareholders, but is closely read by employees, competitors, and analysts, reported Reuters.
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